World War R
by thesarge400
Summary: An oral history of the Reaper War, as told by those who experienced it firsthand. - Heavily inspired by the writings of author Max Brooks.
1. Chapter 1

It's been nearly thirteen years since the end of our conflict with the machines, while others say pockets of synthetic resistance are still being found. "Reaper" is still a sensitive term, and as such the Council still refers to the galaxy's enemy as "Sentients" or "Synthetics" or simply "The Machines".

It is also true there are many different names for our battle.

"The Synthetic Campaigns," "The Black Years," and "The Sentient Conflict". These are the more official ones, the ones many on the Citadel prefer to use, while there are much more 'new-wave' and sensationalist titles such was "World War R" or the "Black Crusade". To me, it will always be the "The Reaper War", simply because that's what it was. A war with a race so powerful, it was almost able to reap every known species, attempting to throw them past the brink of extinction. Sadly, some of those species, while fighting valiantly, did fall into the precipice of oblivion.

It was no doubt our bleakest of days, when the sunrise that waited just beyond the horizon, but no one believed it would come. I was one of those people.

But as you read these pages, a majority, if not all, of the information you're about to consume came from a report delivered to the Council's Postwar Committee. A committee I was the head of at one point. It was nothing short of near insanity that I traveled to nearly every known star system that, spent years going from colony to space station to home world to military base collecting every bit of data I thought was necessary complete said report.

Most of the data I gathered were from the people who had witnessed what everyone believed to be the end of times firsthand, only to forge through it. I loved what I did, wearing out data-pad after data-pad and breaking my omni-tool on several occasions. Many sleepless nights were spent editing and revising, correcting and adding, only for me to redo it all over again when I woke up the next morning or late afternoon.

You may not be surprised that I found it completely devastating when the Council stripped down my report to the bones, leaving behind only numbers, troop reports, statistics, and the like. I'll admit it, right now, that I _cried_ up on that podium when the Council read off my report. I was furious, and that was putting it lightly.

I cornered Councilor Tevos, a lovely looking asari, whose annoyingly calm demeanor tried to dismiss me.

"Too personal" the Councilor would dismiss. "We need to be detached from the personal feelings and opinions. A report like this calls for facts and facts alone."

I claimed that these stories shouldn't be forgotten, that we shouldn't bury the people who experienced all this with statistics and reports. To this day, I will never forget her reply. All she did was simply place a hand on my shoulder, stare at me straight in the eyes and say; "Then write your own damn report. You sit here, petitioning us every day, when you could have just easily dipped into the databases and resources that are already at your disposal. You have everything you need, so use it."

And that's what I did. I wrote my own damn report. Hopefully, as you read, my presence will be nothing more than that of a mere guide and not of a distraction.

* * *

><p><strong>- - Echoes - -<strong>

**Bloomsbury, England**

**[Sitting in a small courtyard within the English neighborhood of Bloomsbury, Sigmund Accurd quickly taps away on his omni-tool. His red hair has large brushstrokes of gray in it, his forehead deep wrinkles, but his age cannot hide the fire that hides behind his bright orange eyes. He looks up as I approach, a confident grin creases his cheeks. Gripping my hand like a bear, he lets me take a seat next to him on the hard stone bench, where deep indentations cover it. Upon closer inspection, I discover these marks are bullet holes.]**

Nobody believed it, those stories on the "big bad machines that were coming for us". Many dismissed it all as semi-religious babble. I personally, was too busy with what I was doing at the time to really notice or care about the news. I worked over at the British Library, not far from here. It was my job to restore documents to their former glory.

I worked on some big projects in my time, ranging from ancient papyrus scratchings to legal charters from the 1600's. At one point I even found myself on the same team charged with repairing the American Declaration of Independence.

**[He chuckles.]**

Can you believe that? The Yanks trusting the us bloody "Brits" to restore their most treasured document? The very same one that was designed as the proverbial middle finger to King George. But I did work with a fantastic team, many of them were American, all of them great at what they did. Needless to say, when the end of the day came, we'd all have a few "intelligent" debates down at pub. But…there was this one guy, from Canada I think, name was Peter. He always mumbled on and on and on about those bloody Squids, which, at the time, nobody in England took seriously. Just another fairy tale at the time, I suppose.

One day he'd come in dead silent, right until we got to work on the Declaration. Then he began to say something along the lines that they were going to "Come down on us all like a plague of locusts, blotting out the sun with their numbers."

We would all laugh at him and get back to work, me making sure John Hancock's massive signature remained pristine. But he kept rambling, and soon I was forced to order him to keep quiet. He would then just play some radio stations on his omni-tool. A lot of old stuff he was into, like real classical pieces. Mozart or Bach, maybe, but I never bothered to ask.

_**Did that bother any of you?**_

At the time? No. I simply found it annoying, but others seemed to really enjoy it. But Peter wouldn't stay on the music for very long, he'd always find some nut-head's signal, talking of the end of times by the "machine overlords". Again, he was told by me and now others on the staff, to turn that rubbish off and get back to work. He didn't respond, just freezing up right there. So I had him removed, told him to take the next few days off to get his head right and not to come back when he did.

Peter never came back. It didn't take until we were nearly finished with the Declaration that I really noticed him not being there. So I had my VI check for Peter at his hotel. When it reported back, it said he never checked out, but he wasn't in his room or anywhere on the premises.

I didn't think anything of it at the time, I rarely spent time at hotels that I checked into myself, either too busy with work or occupying myself with the nightlife.

A day later, still no Peter, the Alliance found it's way into the news as they always did. Some big admiral said they were receiving what he called "ghosts of echoes" on the edge of the system, he claimed they had massive radar signatures or something, but when a patrol was sent, nothing was found. I'm sure that sent chills down Peter's spine, if he was alive when that broadcast went out.

_**You believe he's dead?**_

I don't know. **[Throws both hands into the air, then shrugs.] **At work we all had our theories, some said he just gone up and quit, others, like me, thought that he probably took his life. Kid had obvious signs of depression. **[Clucks his tongue.]** If he is, I'm glad he wasn't around a week later, when everything went dark for the first time. If not, he was probably shitting his pants like the rest of us.

The same day we finished with the Declaration, radios stopped working, electronics went dark, and the sky turned black.

They say that Ground Zero was Vancouver, the first city to get hit by the Squids… But Ground Zero might as well have been Bloomsbury.

* * *

><p><strong>Ward 34-C,Omega<strong>

**[Hiding within the innards of the infamous space station, there are certain places hidden from the throbbing music and flood of vorcha and crime. This tiny, soundproofed haven holds a table and two stools. Across from me, Ulgard Gord sits. His four, black eyes stare me down with intent, trying to read me like a book. He's missing three of his five fingers on his left hand, the batarian unwilling to tell me how exactly he parted with them.]**

My job was to make sure communications with Aria's…Miss T'Loak's network went smoothly. Monitoring rivals on the station, tracking people who didn't pay their dues, negotiating with the outside world on…**[He grimaces.]**…certain business arrangements. I was a glorified comm guy, but I was well-compensated so I didn't question the woman about her business practices.

You'd be surprised at how far out I could reach just from my little room here on Omega, I could talk weapon shipments with contacts on the Citadel and red sand trade on Illium at the same time, real time. Tech can go far these days, and it was vital that I kept my operation up and running at a hundred and fifty percent. One missed call or transmission, millions, sometimes billions of creds were lost. Aria… Miss T'Loak was never pleased when she lost a minor investment, let alone a major one. She was skilled at letting her…**[Another pause as he seems to search for the right word, all the while tucking both hands underneath the table.]**…displeasure known.

So when Earth, and eventually the whole Sol system went dark, I was worried. You could credit losing contact with a habitable planet to solar bodies interfering with superluminal communications or the like. But a whole system? That just didn't happen. Ever.

You had private comm operators, military, corporate, political. On top of that, you had every other planet in that system, along with deep space and orbital stations. Colonies on Mars, stations orbiting Venus and Jupiter, miners out in the asteroid belts.

_**So there was absolutely no way that a whole system could lose contact with you?**_

No. No damn way. Even if they had some sort of massive FTL relay failure emergency radio bands would still operate, it would take forever for me to get the signals, but I'd still get them eventually. This time though? Nothing, not a peep.

_**I take it that had you worried?**_

Worried? Worried doesn't begin to describe it. Earth alone was a ninety billion credit business to Miss T'Loak per _month_, but the entire Sol system? Easily worth upwards of a good trillion or two per year. And when I informed her of this, she flipped shit. Damn near broke my neck. Thankfully, she didn't, and instead took it out on a passing bartender, slamming the poor bastard against the wall with a wave of biotics.

The woman tried to send out a handful of scouts the next morning, to personally oversee a few of major ventures on Mercury. But the relay was jam packed with outgoing vessels. Thousands of them, all on full throttle once they broke the mass effect field. I rushed back to my station, trying to get in contact with any of them, just trying to find out what the hell was going on. First I tried military bands, nothing. Just static. Switched to open-access frequencies.

**[Shakes his head.] **Bad idea. Felt like thousands of voices shouting into my ears, all at once. I tried to single out some of them, isolate the junk signals and noisy ones, but there were too many. As soon as I filtered through a lot of the crap, more of it came through. All I could get out of it was partial shouts and what I guess were warnings. "Synthetics!" came out a lot, along with "Not geth! Not geth! Not geth!". I kept checking the military bands for any Alliance ships, but still I got squat. That's when my gut really did an about-face. The Alliance was always on the scene for this kind of crap, good PR and shit.

But they weren't there. Not one ship from their navy. That's when I knew something was _really_ wrong. So I pulled up a live video feed from the Sol System Relay. Wish I hadn't.

_**Why?**_

'Cuz that's where _they _started crawling out of the relay, dozens of them. Damn leviathans, bigger than any dreadnought I had ever seen. And then the video feed and radio chatter cuts out…**[Snaps his fingers.]**…just like that. And all it filled with was the horrible, mechanical voice. It just shattered my eardrums and ripped into my forehead like a hot blade, 'least that's what it felt like.

**[He clears his throat, preparing to do his best to imitate what he heard. His voice comes out deep, almost menacing.]**

"_We are the Harbingers of your destruction."_

* * *

><p>More to come.<p>

If you couldn't tell, I was inspired by Max Brooks, author of _World War Z_. A fantastic book. I wanted to go for his style of writing for this kind of project.

Hope you enjoyed.


	2. Chapter 2

**- - Black Morning Pt. 1- -**

**Brackenworth, Jannah **

**[The planet of Jannah, and her colony Brackenworth, still show signs of a fierce engagement. The glass towers that made the world famous are still in the process of reconstruction, with multi-species crews working on section after section. A twisted black hull lies sprawled out over the top of Mt. Latenya, Citadel recovery teams scale across its stern. They're like ants compared to its sheer size. The manager of the reconstruction effort, Matriarch T'Larr sits upon the head of a fallen marble statue. The simple tank top she wears does little to hide the large scars that trace along her shoulders and down her left arm.]**

"Where were you when _it_ happened?" That's what they always ask you, right? Where were you, what were you doing, and the like. Well, I was on the can, and before you give me that look, let me finish. Yes, I was taking a crap when the Machines were first reported, but the media made everything leading up to it look like it wasn't a big deal. "Possible Geth invasion of Sol System" and that's all they said after the entire star system went dark. Sure the Council promised to send in investigators to quell the human politicians throwing fits back on the Citadel.

Me, on the other hand? I knew something was about to go down the second Sol broke contact. Did I know what at the time? No, no I didn't. The Geth were a very real possibility, but that deep into human territory? Not a chance. My money would have been on those batarians trying to get even, hell, maybe a rogue sect of the turian military leftover from Relay 314.

_**Did you ever consider the Reapers?**_

Privately, yeah. Not in front of the Council, though. Back then I worked on the Citadel, one of the many advisors for Councilor Tevos.

_**Many?**_

Yes sir, Tevos had a _lot_ of people advising her, on almost every decision she made. **[Sighs.] **I was her go-to Matriarch for foreign affairs. I had to stay as up to date as she was, at all times. When contact was lost with Sol, I informed her of all possible offenders. 'Cept the robots from Hades, of course. She didn't want to believe it when Sovereign first hit us, none of the Councilors did. Me on the other hand? I knew highly advanced robotic murder machines when I saw them. And you can damn well bet that was the first thing that came to mind once all this hit the fan.

So we sent a few scout vessels through, told them to get into contact with the Alliance's First Fleet, if possible. If not, dock with Pluto's Lancer Station and find out what was going on. **[She grits her teeth.] **Not one ship came back, not after a whole week in there. Human politicians were getting antsy, so the Council set a lance of asari frigates to investigate.

That's when it happened.

I was at home, on the head checking up on some vids with my tool when I saw the relay flood with the ships the newscasters were talking about for hours, thousands and thousands of refugees. **[She stands, screaming at a repair crew for a moment, before sitting again.] **It was just like the uprisings on Dmatle a couple centuries back, you know, several hundred colonies had to be evacuated on the planet because of some separatists that acquired nukes. But this was on a scale unlike anything I've ever seen.

So many ships, so many cries for help. Worst of all, we never saw what was coming next. The frigates, instead of going through the relay like ordered, decided to try and sort out the refugees, and they didn't even know yet what the hell all those humans were running from. Then it happened, right there while I was taking a crap. This gargantuan monstrosity pulls its ugly head out of the relay and appears in the center of all the swarm of refugees. Giant yellow eyes opened up on that thing, its optics, and spread out its arms or tentacles or whatever and then…and then it fired. A hazy yellow beam just tore right through a whole mess of ships, vaporizin' them instantly.

Frigates never got a chance to fire off a salvo. The Squid lifted its arms and fired all of them, each beam was precisely targeted to cut through the bridge of every ship. Then it turned to every other vessel and just started raining death, and that's all we got before the transmission cut.

Naturally, the Citadel, and especially all the humans on it, when into a full blown panic. The station went into temporary lockdown, arms shut tight for two whole days. That might not seem like such a long time, but for the nexus of the whole civilized galactic society to shut itself away from the world? It only caused more panic. Humans and the Alliance demanded immediate action, asking a full military mobilization of all the Council species and their fleets.

_**And the Council's response?**_

**[Her purple eyes narrow, her jaw visibly tightens.] **You already know. You were there. They bailed on us, everyone. Even that bitch Tevos. Sparatus ran back to Palaven, and what's-his-name snuck back to Sur'Kesh. And with them, their fleets followed, our backbone with the turians, our brains with the salarians…our finesse with the asari. The humans were left to pick up the pieces. All your firepower and nothing to do with it. At least, not yet.

It was still months away before any Squid presence in Citadel space was detected, and I was long gone before that happened.

_**You left?**_

Yeah. **[She gives a sideways glance at her arm.] **Didn't get these scars from the husks on the station, that's for sure. I came here, back to Jannah where I was born. Had family still in the area and I wasn't willing to put up with the crap that was stirring up back on the Citadel. Figured I could get my mom out before everything went down.

I imagined coming to Jannah, especially Brackenworth, and finding it all to be empty. A ghost town, the glass towers long empty. Instead, not one soul had left.

So instead of picking up my mom and getting the hell off world, I had to convince an entire colony to pack up shop and leave. One Matriarch versus the world. **[She snorts derisively.]**

I heard about the Reapers breaching areas well beyond the Sol Relay, coming out by the hundreds, slowly spreading out to the rest of the galaxy, but they never really panicked. Everyone believed that we were safe, that the Reapers weren't going to breach the system, let alone land on Jannah. We even had a tiny section of my people's fleet here, a cruiser and a few frigates. For the next five weeks, it seemed like just that. But I tried to warn 'em, and they just laughed their asses off and dismissed me like a child.

**[Her eyes go down to her feet.] **The Squids came at dawn, I remember because the frigate that hovered over our colony lit up like a second sun. So bright, that I got up at first, dazed and blinded. I didn't know what was going on, neither did my mother. Then pieces of the frigates hull started falling from the sky, crashing into the glass towers two miles east of us. I could see them topple, twist, and shatter.

It's funny, 'cuz when you wake up to something like that, you don't immediately think of the worst. Your mind always goes to something else, something less shocking. "Maybe a mass drive failure caused the frigate to go critical" or "Terrorists". You know, something like that. Terrorists and accidents.

It's kind of sad, the world we live in. When stuff like that is what you think of to keep you in check, to keep you calm and rational. So the thoughts of a horrible accident or terribly evil individuals are supposed to keep us calm nowadays?

Well, once I saw that beast burst through the cloud plume left behind by the frigate, I knew exactly what I was facing.

* * *

><p><strong>Lübeck, Germany<strong>

**[I walk alongside an Alliance Marine on the 'field side' of the Holsten Gate, stepping through freshly-cut grass. It's a sunny day, an infrequent but welcome occurrence. Children brush by us, their mothers give chase. The Gate itself is still severely damaged, with its south tower still in rubble at the feet of the structure. Former First Lieutenant Derik Oryaga kicks a fist-sized piece of concrete a good ten meters away, as if it were made of paper. The man is only forty-two, according to his record, but the man looks well into his seventies.]**

No one, and I mean no one, remembers the fuckin' infantry when we fought the damn Shrimp. Twenty-two long years, billions dead, and nobody cares. Sure, the Navy lost their fair share, but we lost easily twice as many.

_*Alliance estimates put Marine losses at well over nine hundred million active duty combatants, as well as several hundred million reservists._

Think about it. When you think of us winning the war, what's the first thing that enters your mind? It's probably those images they put out all over the extranet now. The tall servicemen from the Navy, in his or her dress blues, medals shining, polished shoe stomping down on a Shrimp's head, all the while a mighty dreadnought bursts through the clouds. Admit it, that's the kind of shit you think of. Hell, sometimes I do too.

But nobody remembers the first jarhead taking their first steps on solid ground after we reclaimed Earth. They remember the first vessel, the SSV _Homeland _or something like that, blowing the final crippled Shrimp to bits. They remember the fighters and their shining silver wings, swooping down from the heavens, destroying the millions of dead-heads that lined the street of nearly every city. They remember when the first of the battleships that broke atmosphere.

_**But they don't remember the infantry.**_

Exacta-fucking-mundo.

_**Why do you think that is?**_

We couldn't do anything against those giant bastards, plain and simple. What could a rifleman do against a thing that was a billion times his size? Nothing. A rifle wouldn't do jack squat, might as well fire spitballs. Plus, we were never critically acclaimed for our involvement in the whole mess once we actually did touch dirt because we got our asses kicked. Sure, there were plenty of flashlights and dead-heads to go around, but there were far too many, we were spread far too thin. Even though we had FTL travel, we still couldn't deploy to areas fast enough, not with every relay being destroyed or shut down.

God, that was the worst. Once Earth fell, the Alliance took up command after the Council. Some jackass from the 63rd Scout Flotilla thought it was a grand idea to shut down or destroy every linking relay that the Shrimps infested. It held them off for a little while, at first. But they're tech, even though some science nuts put them at billions of years old, still outclassed us. Their FTL propulsion kicked the crap out of our best schooners.

_*Alliance 'Shark' Class Frigates are among the fastest vessels in the Navy, equipped with highly improved FTL drive cores. It earned the nickname of 'schooner' for the long rear fin that resembled more of a sail than a shark's tail._

We couldn't get anywhere! We would always get transmissions from the colonies closest to Earth, once we arrived weeks later, it was too late. The entire planet was hazed.

_**Hazed?**_

The planet was damaged so badly, its surface either burnt to a crisp or stripped of whatever resources it had. Its atmosphere would have a grayish haze to it, all of them did. **[He points to the sky.] **Earth…she's showin' the first few signs of recovery. Eight years back, sky would be completely gray, land would be dark, ashy snow would still be falling.

_**Were you here when it was still like that?**_

I was here before that. My unit was on Earth when we got ass-fucked out of nowhere. Sorry, sorry. 'Ass-fucked' ain't exactly the military term for it, but that's what it felt like.

My unit, the 337th Infantry Division, was deployed to quell a few riots right in the center of Red Square, in Moscow. Normally no government would deploy a military force to dissolve a civil disturbance, but these riots got big. Some group of political loonies came rushing into the Square with automatic weapons and old-school Molotov cocktails and started tearing up everything. About a couple thousand joined in, either with them or not, and that's how the media said the Moscow Riots started.

Bullshit if you ask me. The Russians, at least in my opinion, were never very good at treating their own people with common decency. They trampled on them for centuries without any remorse. The Great Purge, where millions were murdered and sent to labor camps. Then the Soviet Union, where there citizens were starving while they spent on the military, trying to compete with the U.S. during the Cold War. If anything started those riots, it was people who were fed up with being treated like crap.

**[He sighs.]** My squad was sent east towards the Kremlin, that iconic, supposedly fortified building that the vids always talk about. "Fortified" my ass. When we crossed Moskva River, the place was already falling apart. The wall had toppled, deviants spilled inside. We had our orders.

Non-lethal force. Not one civilian died at the hands of an Alliance soldier unless we were fired upon. You know what they gave us? Police-grade riot gear. No, we didn't get to wear our hard-suits, we had to go in looking like the lawmen. You ever been shot wearing a hard-suit? You got kinetic barriers first of all, and the ceramic plating that actually covers your body is pretty solid. Riot gear is nothing like that. You got old-school Kevlar.

A standard mass accelerator firearm launches a piece of metal ranging from the size of a grain of sand to the size of two of my thumbs put together at supersonic speeds, about as fast if not faster than bullets fired from ancient gas-operated guns. Kevlar can't stop that one bit.

I don't know who's idea was it, but I'm gonna kill them when I find out who. You know what they told us when they handed us that crappy riot gear? "To bring an air of respect to the citizens of Russia". You know what I told 'em? Nobody in Russia respected the police anymore. But the uniform of a marine was a different story. People respected that, respected that at least someone still fought for humanity.

But regardless we marched, as police instead of marines onto the Kremlin's grounds. Bad, bad idea. They had taken over the upper floors of every building, so they were free to throw molotovs and fire upon us all the while more of them attacked us groundside.

We had tear gas and batons at our disposal, since firearms were a last resort, so we used them. I was in charge of a squad of forty or so, and I had all my big guys and heavy-hitters in the front, with all my pitchers in the back.

_**Pitchers?**_

Yeah, guys who could really throw. They were tossin' the gas from the rear.

_**Where were you?**_

**[He smiles.] **Where do you think? I was in the front, leading. Gotta lead by example, right? That's what they taught us in Officer Training School. So there I was, facing down sixty-plus unruly bastards, the bloodlust in their eyes. I shouted for them to surrender once, and when they collectively told us to "fuck off" I ordered for gas masks to come on and the front line to start marching.

They came at us, charging like morons. The first one that came at me, the end of my baton cracked him right across the temple. My boys reported that everyone had their masks in place, so I ordered for the gas to be thrown. Then it just turned into a melee, people blindly running at us 'cuz the tear gas made damn sure they couldn't see or breathe for crap. It was cleanup for us at first, subdue anyone who was submissive enough, knock out whoever wasn't.

But then it went south. **[He scowls.] **Remember what I said earlier, 'bout those pricks taking the upper floors and windows? Well, they turned their guns loose on us as soon as we started thinning out the baddies on the ground. They cut down the boys in the rear first, body armor unable to stop mass accelerator rounds.

I lost at least a dozen before we could really react. One of my heavies, a big corporal by the name of Bertelli, took a round to the throat. He fell on me, with his weight and the heavy Kevlar, we both hit the ground hard. I ordered for my marines to get their rifles and respond in force. Squeezing out from under Bert, I discovered this giant was still alive.

As I dragged him behind a flipped car, I had to reassess. When my unit first arrived, it was dusk. Now it was pitch black out, the only light we got were from the fires covering the ground and buildings and the muzzle flashes from the guns.

Most of my men were still stuck in the center of the Kremlin, more worried about returning fire to those the pricks in the building than the ones on the ground. After sticking a crap-load of medi-gel into Bertelli's gaping windpipe, I took my rifle and got back into the fight. Knowing that joining what was left of my squad in the middle of the Kremlin was a bad idea, I ordered all my boys to attack to the rear.

**[A broad smile appears.]** You see, marines never retreat. Ever. If the jarheads retreated at Okinawa or Iwo Jima, the Pacific woulda stayed a war zone for decades. Korea would've become completely communist. The Middle East would turn into a nuclear parking lot. The Preliminary Colonies would've been ruled by anarchy.

So we marines always attack to the rear if we get in too deep. We managed to hump back towards Bertelli's position, where I got a medic to help him out. Then I took all the healthy boys I had left and snuck round back towards the rear of the building that fired upon us. We cleared it room by room, floor by floor, finding a crap-load of illegally obtained firearms amongst the bodies we piled up. Then we moved on to the roof, nothing much up there except for this short, little prick that was taking pot shots at everybody alone, civilian or otherwise.

_**I take it you took him into custody?**_

I kicked him off the roof, five stories down. He got up on his knee to reload or clear a jam or something, and when he did…Bam! Heel of my boot into his back. Then I put at least two dozen rounds from my gun into his back after he hit pavement, just to make sure. No arrest, no court-martial, no mercy. That's the motto of the Three-Thirty-Seven.

Now I know what you're probably thinking, how can I be such a cold-hearted bastard? How could I possibly force a man off the roof of a five-story building with no remorse or regret? **[The Lieutenant snorts and chuckles.] **Trust me, that wasn't the worst thing I've done.

Back to the point. After we secured the Kremlin, the rioting had started to die down after that, at least for a while. We used this reprieve to restock and reinforce, evac the wounded and dead. Sun started to come up as we received new orders, get on a bird and get to this slum south of the Square, where more deviants were converging.

And then…then…**[His fingers curl into fists.]**

The sky turns fuckin' black as night, and this wave washes over us. Static filled our radios, our dropships fell to the ground, my HUD went dark. Then this…this screech tears into my skull, man, like a thousand knives jabbing for my brain. I didn't even realize I fell to my knees, fingers prying at my helmet, trying to get it off. Then, out of all that pain, I looked toward the sky.

Being dawn, everything was a bright red, except _them._ Those damn things were as black as the devil's soul itself.

And as soon as they hit the ground, they started to kill.

* * *

><p>Sorry I've been MIA for a while, but school and sports have really been running a violent train on me. Hope this helps.<p> 


	3. Chapter 3

**- - Black Morning Pt. 2 - -**

**Manhattan, New York City**

**[Finding Armand De la Rosa among the rotting skyscrapers and shattered streets, the quiet man barely notices me as I approach. Wrapped tightly in a environmental hazard suit, his eyes study the Geiger Counter in his hands carefully. He then lifts an omni-tool into the air, checking the wind patterns. Satisfied, he sits upon the mangled wreck of transport shuttle and invites me to sit with him. The harsh winds are soundless as he speaks through the radio. His voice is low, calm, and calculated. No emotion.]**

When you first see 'em, you don't want to believe they're there. You _really_ don't. Some try to rationalize it as their mind playing a messed up game with them, or some elaborate military drill. But once you get a real good long look at the black monster that's ripping down an entire building, you _know_ it's real.

And I was there, just sitting on the rooftop of my apartment, playing with my kid when it happened. The military response was surprisingly quick, not the Alliance, but of the ramshackle militaries of the United North American States. Mexican and Canadian ground forces, American air power, if you could call it that. Cruisers that shouldn't even be flying in low-orbit showed up, and were promptly sent into the Hudson Bay. Don't even mention the fighters that swooped in, the ones that's somehow got through the first Squid's defenses didn't do much damage, their payloads weren't even making dents in that armor.

Now remember, this is…**[His eyes narrow.]**…this _was_ New York City. The millions that inhabited it were watching as this scene unfolded, as the ships plummeted and soldiers in the street were met with heretic geth troopers and husks. Buildings fell shortly thereafter, either from a Reaper landing on it or blowing it out of its way. Streets filled wish ash and rubble, bodies and smoke.

Now, you can imagine a father seeing this, with his kid right there as wanton destruction began to unfold. So I made the choice any rational man would, get out of there, calmly and quickly. Sadly though, with a wife and another child within the building, it was hard to maintain any sort of rationality.

I became a scared little father, clutching my boy to my chest as I waited in the elevator, the sounds of explosions and buildings collapsing resonating through the walls.

**[He pauses, glancing off into the distance, towards the pile of concrete and metal that was most likely the Chrysler Building.]**

I fought against the thralls of fleeing people trying to get out of the building, while I tried to get in. Something…Something big, rocked the building, sending everyone on my level to the floor. Then the foundation began to rock, and everything underneath me gave way.

I felt the freefall, my little Rodrigo's hands get wrenched away from mine. And then the rib-breaking impact. I woke up hours later, somehow I wasn't crushed by the tons of metal and concrete above me. And then the realization hit me, there was this slab of rock on me, the air was thick with smoke and ash, and my kid wasn't next to me. So I screamed for him, over and over and over, ignoring the fire of pain that spread from my several broken ribs. I shouted 'til my voice went hoarse and eventually fainted, either from the pain or the lack of clean air.

Woke up to Canadian medics tending to me. I had no idea where I was 'till I saw the overturned trains and collapsed section of tunnels. They dug me out and dragged me down into the subways, same one not far from my apartment.

We were going deep into the tunnel system.

I heard marines, maybe the Mexicans I still don't know, shouting things like 'get C4 on the entrances' and 'do _not_ let them in'.

They had me so hopped up on painkillers that whatever the hell they were doing to my leg, I couldn't feel it. But even in my drugged state, my mind kept going back to one thing. My family.

As soon as I got my wits about me, I grabbed the nearest soldier and asked as calmly as I could where my wife and kids were. The woman ignored me, asking instead how much pain I was in. If this were a scene in a movie or one of those cheap videogames, this is the part where the main character realizes something really bad happened…sadly I didn't.

I just got angry. So I tightened my grip when she tried to pull away, and asked again, forcefully, yet still very calm. '_Where is my family?_'

**[The ground begins to shake, followed immediately by what sounds like thunder. A building was toppling under its own weight.]**

She told me that I was the only living body they pulled from the rubble that was my apartment building. While she told me that, a man behind me pumped a syringe full of morphine into me. I was out before I knew it.

_**In the following weeks, what was it like fighting the Reapers?**_

**[His cold eyes glare at me through his visor for a moment.] **It was a conscription from day one. Any able-bodied man and woman was handed a rifle and told to follow the orders of any military personnel in your immediate vicinity. For me, since my leg was torn to hell, I was dragged along by the Canadians as a noncombatant.

Pushing deeper into the tunnel system, you could hear the machines as they landed, sending shockwaves through the tunnels. Every time it happened, I was convinced we were going to get killed from the roof collapsing.

Mexican Marines were protecting us the whole way, led by a very large man. I can't remember his name, but you could tell he was a career soldier. Walked tall and proud, spoke with conviction, and definitely knew what he was doing. Dragging the wounded, which included me, through the tunnels, he had his men plant explosives along the length of the subway.

If the Reaper shock troopers found us down there, we could collapse the tunnels behind us if need be. Not that I cared about the Reapers at that point.

**[Another pause, this one was the longest so far.]**

As soon I was healthy enough to walk on my own two feet, the Canadians were hesitant to give me any sort of firearm, citing my 'unstable mental state'. I lost my whole damn family, and they treated like I turned insane. They isolated me from everyone else, and they always had somebody watching me.

So that's what I did. I let 'em believe I was crazy. I didn't talk to any of the medics who tried their little questionnaires on me. Marines tended to stay away from me, other civilians wouldn't come close to the 'crazy man'.

This went on for the three days while we were all stuck in those tunnels, until finally the leader of the Mexican soldiers took me aside. We sat across from each other, and all he did was look at me for the longest time, hands underneath his chin, elbows on his knees. And he watched me.

Cold, steel-grey eyes staring me down for what felt like an hour. Finally I spoke up, saying if he didn't say anything within the next five seconds, I was leaving.

He told me his name. Manuel Entrévez. And then he told me something I'll never forget.

'_I know you are not crazy, my friend. You carry the look of a man who has lost much. We all have lost much. Every moment we all waste down here, another hundred, maybe another thousand people die. Those things won't quit until we are all wiped out. So that leaves one question. Will you fight, or hide in the dark?'_

Now I was the one staring at him. He just sat there patiently, waiting for me to respond. I stood, told him to get me a rifle.

He smiled, patted me on the shoulder, gave me a spare uniform and armor, and then placed a gun in my hands.

We immediately set out for the surface, leaving the Canadians in the tunnels until we gave them the all clear.

Those first few steps back to the surface of New York was surreal. Red light poured through the door a few marines forced open, silence followed. Cautiously, we climbed the stairway into a street somewhere in Brooklyn, ashes falling from the sky like snow. Smoke was rising from almost every street, fires and what not.

It was almost scary, how quiet it had become, but Entrévez led on regardless.

We pushed down the street, which was completely empty save for rubble and abandoned cars. That's when I got my first real look at a Reaper. It was standing there, right next to a skyscraper, not moving. It just sat there, not killing or anything. I could make out about half a dozen more doing the same exact thing. Just sitting there.

But our priority, at least to Entrévez, was finding survivors and getting them to safety in the tunnels until we could secure a way out of the city. So with Reapers sitting there amongst -some even attached to- the skyscrapers, we started rummaging through buildings for people who might still be alive.

I started searching this little store with two other marines. The storefront was empty, windows smashed and everything inside was gone. Apparently with the world ending, people still found time to loot.

While the marines were searching through the back of the store, I found a door leading to the basement. Didn't like what I found.

The basement itself was rather large, easily could fit tall shelves for storing goods. Only instead of shelves, there were rows upon rows of Dragon's Teeth. Every single one of those spikes had a person, or what was once a person, on it.

A dozen geth troopers patrolled in between the spikes, probably to keep track of their progress. Every single one of them turned to me, silently observing me. They didn't lift their guns. They just kept watching.

Then a marine from upstairs called to me, saying that Entrévez needed everyone to regroup on him. So I just backed out of the room and shut the door behind me. Geth never followed.

Entrévez found a body of one of the Reaper shock troopers. It was a snarled up, mangled piece of flesh and electronics that was once a batarian. He pointed to its grotesque shoulder, which at first seemed to be blanketed with massive boils, but it was a _human being_ grafted to it. The thing was covered in blood, human blood, from head to toe…it had been feasting on a body.

He explained these were not only the bulk of the Reapers' ground forces, but were also part of their psychological warfare machine. They would eat their own comrades in battle, somehow it gave them a boost when fighting or something, I don't know. But, they'd eat just about anything else too, dogs, cats, any humans they cut down in combat.

New York got it easy, I guess. Heard places like Chicago and Beijing got flooded with the things.

After showing us the body, we moved further into Brooklyn, finding more bodies both Reaper and other along the way. Empty Dragon's Teeth littered the sidewalks and back alleys which left everyone wondering; 'where the hell did the people on them go?'

That kept me on edge as we searched the heaps of debris and rubble for anyone, that and the seemingly dormant Reapers sitting there amongst skyscrapers. I always expected a husk or something to be waiting for me every time I forced a car's door open or shoved a slab of concrete aside.

Then…then we found a building, a small, two-story structure squeezed in between two larger ones. The windows were shattered, the door wide open. To me it didn't look like anyone had been inside since the Squid touched down a few days back.

But Entrévez took one look and marched inside, his men followed, I just sat outside and covered the street. Then I heard voices, none familiar.

He found a whole group of people, men, women, children, all hiding in the basement. Then a man came up, dressed in U.S. Space Corps gray. He was a Lieutenant Commander serving aboard one of the cruisers that was sent into the Hudson, escaping via an escape pod that landed him in Yankees Stadium. Name was Channing, I think.

Apparently, he and a handful of his men fought all the way from the Stadium to the heart of Brooklyn, dodging Squid and ground troops. Then he pulled aside all of the marines, including me, and dropped something big on all of us.

The U.S. Space Corps, in a last-ditch effort, was going to have a stealth bomber drop a nuclear payload on the city. They were hoping that it would be able to destroy, or at least damage the Reaper presence. The Alliance, which apparently had a evac station in New Jersey, was never informed of this.

Most of us began to panic as Channing warned that the bomb, or bombs, were going to be dropped any day now.

He said now would be the perfect time. None of the Reapers were moving, all dormant. Perfect targets for a strike, he claimed.

Entrévez took it all in as if he was watching the news. Calm, collected, not showing an ounce of fear or worry. Then he ordered to round up the civilians and get back to the subway tunnels immediately.

So we got moving. _Fast._ We pushed the civvies hard back up the street.

**[He stops to snort.] **Funny. I was never even in their military officially and I'm talking like I am.

Anyways, we we're almost there when gunfire started cutting down the people in front of me. The shock troopers that seemed to be all but gone appeared, firing at us from what seemed like everywhere. At that point I reacted on instinct and dove behind the skeleton of a car.

I couldn't think, so I just screamed and fired the rifle I had wildly. Then a marine slid next to me and smacked me pretty hard. I don't know a lot Spanish, but I'm pretty sure he called me an 'idiot' and told me 'to aim the damn thing'.

So I tried to calm myself down the best I could and then poked my head around the rear-end of the car. A dozen of those batarian-human hybrid things were pouring from alleys and were shooting at anything that moved. Saw this woman in front of me, couldn't be any older than nineteen, maybe twenty. Her head exploded from a stray bullet, stray bits of flesh and skull rained around her.

Then I began to shoot. I don't know why, but every bullet I fired found its target. The first monster came charging for me, I shot it square in the face. Second one was feeding upon the corpse of a fallen Mexican, I killed it. The third was a nasty little husk, had to be a child, too short to be an adult. I must've claimed at least six or seven before Entrévez grabbed me by my collar and _carried _me away from my position.

He shouted in my ear we had to get back to the subways now.

It was the longest hundred yards I ever had to run. Marines in front of me were turning and spraying wildly before turning back. Civilians kept running.

A little girl tripped and fell on the steps, her mother didn't notice as she ran inside. I scooped her up and carried her into the main lobby, then I turned back for the fray only to find the front doors shutting in my face.

Entrévez, with omni-tool in hand, shut and locked the doors in front of me. He just looked at me with those cold eyes of his, and I knew he wanted me to stay.

Then he turned and started shouting orders.

**[He speaks in fluent Spanish for the first time. It was also the first time he shows any emotion in his voice.] **_"¡Mantener la línea!"_

And then…then the bomb fell.

* * *

><p>Peace.<p> 


End file.
